Jeanne D'Arc, the maid of France

Contents

78 99

III. Vaucouleurs 34

IV. France 45 ' V, Chinon ey

II

IN these surroundings Jeanne grew to girlhood, tall and beautiful, sound in body and mind. She was merry and straightforward and affectionate, busy about her own small affairs and helpful to others. But her childish heart held more than laughter and fairy-lore, or dutiful obedience to parents and church : she had learned something of misfortune and war, she had thrilled at the call of noble deeds, and grieved over the sorrows of that country whose Lord was the King of Heaven. As womanhood dawned, all these influences deepened ; and her love, her loyalty, her sympathy with all wrong and suffering, were fused into a great passion, " the pity there was for the realm of France." " I had," she said, " a great will and desire that my king should have his kingdom." In this ready garden was dropped the seed of the great vision which, in its growth and blossoming, should absorb all her life. She herself tells the story of the day when heaven opened the gate that should nevermore be closed to her.

" I was thirteen when I had a Voice from God for my help and guidance. The first time I heard this Voice I was a young child, and I was much afraid. It was mid-day in the summer, in my father's garden. I heard this Voice to the right, toward the church. It seemed to come to me from lips I should reverence. I believe it was sent to me from God."

In the light that shone about her, she saw the image of a great angel, surrounded by many smaller ones, and it seemed to her that he must be St. Michael, captain of the heavenly hosts ; afterwards " he had taught me so well," she said, ** and it was so clear to me, that I believed firmly it was he." It is written in an old book that "the true office of St. Michael is to make great revelations to men below, by giving them holy counsels." His first gentle admonition to the little peasant girl was to be a good child and obey her mother and go often to church. " St. Catherine and St. Margaret will come to thee," said the Voice, "follow their counsel. They have been chosen to guide thee and counsel thee in all thou hast to do. Believe what they shall tell thee. It is the order of our Lord." The Voice came to her again and again ; she heard it in the forest, in the fields, when the bells were ringing for prayer, when she knelt with her neighbors in the parish church. "He told me of the great misery there was in the kingdom of France," she said. "Above all, he told me to be a good child and God would help me, — to go to the help of the King of France, among other things."

The piety and devotion of the girl deepened into a fervid wonder of faith. She locked the divine secret in her heart, showing forth only more tenderness and obedience, and the added gravity of one who shall bear great tidings. In after years, the only miracle her neighbors could remember was her unfailing goodness. She was a good girl, ** so good that all the village of Domremy loved her ; " " God-fearing, and without her like in the village." " Often she confessed her sins, and every day when I celebrated mass, she was there," said the curi ; but not even in confession did she reveal the secret of her heavenly visitors. "A good girl," said another, "virtuous, chaste, and pious, speaking in all simplicity, according to the precept of the Gospel : * Yes, no ; it is, it is not.' To affirm strongly, contenting herself with saying, * Without fail.'" Hauviette, her intimate, paints her as she stood in the village life : " She was a good girl, simple and gentle. She loved to frequent the church and sacred places. She used to spin and work like other girls. She would blush when they told her she was too devout and went too much to church." The cur^ said she would have given him money, if she could, to say masses. But she gave what she had : flowers for the altars, candles for the saints, loving service to all about her ; and because she could give no alms, "she would even sleep on the hearth that the poor might lie in her bed." She was an apt pupil in the school of her saints, and learned well to be a good child before she must con the great lesson heaven had in store for her.

Even legend could add nothing to the story, but hit the gold of truth, as legend will : she was so gentle, birds ate from her hand; she was so brave, not the smallest animal was lost when she guarded the flock. In those after years, she herself said : "The poor folk came to me readily, because I never did them any unkindness;" and until the end of life she faced hungrier wolves than those of the Bois Chesnu. A pretty prelude was written to the story of the mid-day revelation in her father's garden. The children were running races in the meadow for a posy prize, and Jeanne skimmed the ground so lightly, they cried : " O Jeanne, you seem to fly ! " As she flung herself down, panting, a boy's voice said in her ear : "Go home; your mother wants you." But her mother had not sent for her, and when she went into the garden, there came the great light and the Voice from heaven. It was said that " the night she was born, the poor people of the place were seized with a mysterious joy. All ignorant of the birth of the young girl, they ran from house to house, asking what new thing had come to pass. For some it is a cause of new lightness. What more } The cocks, as heralds of this new gladness, broke out into song of what •was not known to them ; they beat their wings, and for two hours they were heard to herald the good fortune of this new birth."

For nearly four long years, she put aside the gayety of girlhood, and lived her simple, devout, tender life, helping her mother, loving her friends, obeying her father, while she wrestled with the growing conviction that it was she who must save France. She often saw St. Catherine and St. Margaret, ''their faces adorned with beautiful crowns, rich and precious." She kissed the ground where they had been ; she wept, and wished they would have taken her with them. To her the church was the threshold of heaven, and the voices of her inspiration took the form of its familiar saints, her ''Brothers of Paradise," she called them, who, after that first tender admonition in the garden, visited her ceaselessly for her comfort and guidance ; and through them the Voice of God summoned the genius of the girl to fulfill her destiny. The Voice came stronger and stronger. " You must go, you must go! Jeanne the Maid, daughter of God, you must go ! " " How can that be, since I am only a poor country girl, who can neither ride nor lead in war.?" was her answer; and her native good judgment and clear sight rebelled against the incredible message until her entire nature was alight. She had the imagination to picture splendid deeds, and earned the faith that power should be given her to accomplish them ; yet she was to do some of her greatest work by what seemed an inspired common sense, flanked by unyielding tenacity of purpose. But now the mere thought of leaving her father and mother, her friends, the valley she loved so dearly, made her courage stagger. " Rather than have come to France save by the will of God," she afterwards said, " I would have been torn asunder by four horses." Yet while reason and affection held her to familiar ways, the call of her genius ever urged her on to what must be ; and when the time came for the flower of her faith to blossom, nothing could hold her back.

In the spring of 1428, the fortunes of France had gone from bad to worse. The poor weak dauphin, called derisively by the English " the little King of Bourges," where he had fled from Paris, was holding his court in one chateau or another of middle France, and wondering whether it might not be better to give up the fight ; while Bedford ruled at Paris, and was planning to have the young Henry VI crowned King of France as soon as might be. At Vaucouleurs, the citadel of that loyal tract along the Meuse, a doughty captain of the king, Robert de Baudricourt, had held out for many years against his personal enemies and those of his master. He was brave as a lion, coarse, rough, domineering; and he could burn and pillage with the best of those swashbuckling brigands who bore the name of soldiers of fortune. He had all their reckless courage and cruelty, and in addition as pretty a turn for making money as any modern long-head. With an eye to comfort at home, he had married a rich widow of the neighborhood, and scarcely was she dead than he filled her place with another as handsomely endowed. Naturally he stole all he could from his enemies, and when he could get possession of their persons drove a bargain in topping ransoms ; he feared neither God nor man, but trusted to the strong right arm and crafty brain of Robert de Baudricourt ; and his good storehouse of Vaucouleurs he proposed to hold against all the power of England and Burgundy. But his case, too, was desperate. His enemies were closing in about him, determined to wipe out him, and with him, that little wedge of loyal France ; while at Domremy, only a few miles away, the villagers must have trembled at the peril of their strong town and their own danger.

The time had come : the peasant girl was to be summoned to her incredible destiny. "Go into France," urged the Voice, ever more insistently. " Go to Robert de Baudricourt, Captain of Vaucouleurs ; he will furnish you with an escort to accompany you." In her four years of conflict she had judged the nature of her messengers, and now her unerring vision showed her the stupendous height before her. Three things, at least, she knew must be done by her for the saving of the country : she must go to Vaucouleurs ; she must go to the dauphin under proper escort ; she must lead him to his due crowning at Reims, where he should be consecrated king with the sacred oil St. Remi had received from heaven.

The first question was how to approach Baudricourt; everyone in the valley knew what manner of man he was. Then, too, Jacques d'Arc had appeared before him to plead a case for Domremy, and had tales to tell of rough play in the castle of the king and short shrift for those who balked his captain. There was no hope of help at home. Once her father had dreamed that he saw her going away in the company of men-at-arms. *' If that should ever be," he said to his sons, " drown her ; and if you will not, I will." A man not to be disputed in his own household was Jacques d'Arc. Yet to Baudricourt and the dauphin she must go ; and she hit upon a goodnatured cousin, Durand Laxart, whom she sometimes called uncle, to take the first step with her. He lived with his young wife at Burey-le-Petit, a village three miles short of Vaucouleurs; and she risked nothing by telling of her mission at home, but set out for the Laxarts' home as if for a friendly visit. That she was ** subtle with a woman's subtlety" was said of her with some truth ; and her path once descried, she was never to be persuaded to easier footing by peasant or prince : "It is the will of God," was her sufficient answer to all withholding.

In May, then, she started on her nine-mile walk to Burey-le-Petit, by way of the hill path beyond Greux. As she entered the forest, fragrant with the perfumed breath of spring, she must have realized that with the beauty of that cradling valley, she put behind her all the sacred isolation of her life with God. The world must now share the secret of destiny which had been hers alone, and as she passed the oratory of Bermont, we may be sure that she knelt at the altar and was heartened again by the brave Voice : *^Fille D^, va^ vuy va! Je serai a ton aide^ va^* " Daughter of God, go, go ! I will be thy aid."

After a few days at Burey-le-Petit, she told Durand Laxart that she wished to go into France, to the dauphin, that he might be crowned. "I myself must go to Robert de Baudricourt, that he may have me conducted to the place where the dauphin is," was her astounding proposal. "Was it not foretold formerly that France should be desolated by a woman and should be restored by a Maid } " she added in cunning argument, and Durand yielded and took her to Vaucouleurs. It is not hard to imagine the reception she had from Baudricourt. Bertrand de Poulengy, a squire who had been at Domremy a dozen years before and had sat under the fairies* tree, tells us of the interview. The peasant girl, in her worn red homespun, tall, beautiful, pale with emotion, went straight to Robert de Baudricourt as he sat among his men-at-arms.

"I have come to you in behalf of my Lord," she said, *'in order that you shall bid the dauphin stand firm and not risk battle with his enemies, for my Lord Himself shall give him succor before mid- Lent." And she added: "The kingdom does not belong to the dauphin but to my Lord, Who wishes the dauphin to be made king and to hold the kingdom in command. In spite of his enemies, he must reign, and I shall lead him to his consecration."

Here Baudricourt recovered himself sufficiently to ask :

"Who is your lord?"

"He is the King of Heaven."

To be confronted in his own castle hall by a visionary girl who calmly informed him that it was she who should straighten out the troubles of distracted France was a stroke too much for the Captain of Vaucouleurs. The stone walls rang with his laughter, and turning to Laxart, who had been standing by pricking with discomfiture, —

" The girl is foolish. Box her ears and take her home to her father," said the Sire de Baudricourt.

This ended the visit to Vaucouleurs, and Jeanne returned to Domremy.

The village must have buzzed with gossip of her expedition. *' She is bewitched. She has been to the fairies* tree ; we have seen her hanging garlands there. ^Les dames* gave her the notion of this mission." But Jeanne laughed at that when her brother told her the story. " She says she will restore France and the royal line! " And they knew not whether to laugh or weep. Yet a young man took this time to press his suit for her hand, and Jacques and Isabeau were only too glad to favor him. He declared she had promised to marry him, and was persistent enough to summon her before the judge at Toul when she denied him. "Then," she said, "I swore to speak the truth. I had promised nothing to this man ; " and she won her case. To St. Catherine and St. Margaret she had promised her maidenhood so long as God should have work for her to do, and she had not yet started on her "sacred charge." She was quite unshaken by that rebuff of Baudricourt. " There is a girl between Coussey and Vaucouleurs who within the year will have the King of France consecrated," she told a youth on the Eve of St. John. G^rardin d'Epinal had married her "gossip" Isabellette, and she had been godmother for their son Nicolas. " ComphCy' said she one day to Gerardin, " if you were not Burgundian, I would tell you something," and he thought she had some marriage in her head.

In July, the valley was especially menaced by the

Burgundians, and the people of Domremy, with all their goods and cattle, fled to Neufchateau, six miles farther up the river, a city of Lorraine, but French in its sympathies. Here for some days the d'Arcs lodged at an inn kept by a worthy widow called La Rousse ; and Jeanne, who never was idle wherever she might be, helped in the care of their cattle and in the work of the house. When the villagers returned to their homes, they found that the marauders had done their best to destroy the town. The stone cottages were dismantled, even the church was in ruins, and they must go to Greux to hear mass. There was a veritable reign of terror in all the region about; and to add to the consternation, news must have come in the autumn that the English were besieging Orleans, that strong independent old city which was called the key of the Loire. Should this fall, except by miracle, France could not be saved.

Again her Voices urged the girl forward. "Go into France, daughter of God, go. Raise the siege which is being made before the city of Orleans." And Jeanne determined to go once more to Vaucouleurs. There was a newborn baby in the Laxart household, and she saw that Durand might ask her from her father as nurse. Goodhearted, simple Durand was ever as wax in her hands, and Jacques d' Arc probably thought she would be as safe at Burey-le- Petit as anywhere. Certainly no one could suppose that she would seek out Baudricourt a second time, or imagine that she should go to France by way of Vaucouleurs.

On the winter day when Durand came creaking over the white frozen roads in his clumsy cart to fetch her, she knew that she must go with no emotion of farewell to those she loved ; Jacques and Isabeau must suspect nothing beyond the visit at Burey-le-Petit. " Goodbye, Mengette. God guard you," she said to the little neighbor who was now betrothed. But she had no courage for Hauviette. " I did not know of Jeanne's departure. I wept much," said Hauviette many years after. " I loved her dearly for her goodness, and because she was my friend." "Farewell, Guillemette. I go to Vaucouleurs," she dared to cry as they passed a cottage at Greux.

Jeanne's tender, loyal heart must have been wrung by the thought that this was goodbye forever to her home, but her purpose never wavered. " I go to Vaucouleurs," was her last word. She was deliberately disobeying her parents, but there was no other way. "God commanded it," she said, "and had I had a hundred fathers, a hundred mothers, had I been daughter to a king, I should have gone none the less."

Ill

JEANNE left her home early in January, 1429, when she was barely seventeen years old. She had promised her kinsman service, and that she gave with the simplicity and vigor that often deceived those about her. "In all she did, save where her mission lay," they said again and again, "she was a very simple girl." And now, glowing as she was with the fire of her high resolve, she nursed the mother and child at Burey-le-Petit as devotedly as if she had no thought beyond the life of that humble household. Yet often, as she hushed the baby on her breast, her dark eyes must have looked beyond the tiny head at Michael marshalling the hosts of France. Her work finished, she was free to obey the Voice that never ceased to urge her forward. *' I must go," she said again to Durand Laxart. " I must seek Robert de Baudricourt in order that he may send me to the place where the dauphin is." And Durand, won now for any bidding, took her to Vaucouleurs and placed her under the roof of his friends Henri le Royer, a wheelwright, and his wife Catherine. Hills hug the river more closely here than at

Domremy, and Vaucouleurs sits with its feet in the meadows and the narrow streets closely packed within its walls making up toward the castle, which is itself overtopped by the crest of a hill. It was a hard place to hold against an enemy ; probably the craft of Robert de Baudricourt had ever been its best defence, and he had now, by some device, postponed attack upon the town. But there was heavy news from Orleans.

In reality, the English had undertaken the siege with insufficient men and supplies. "And all thing then prospered for you, till the tyme of the Siege of Orleans, taken in hand, God knoweth by what advis," wrote Bedford to the English Parliament in 1433. But they made a brave show, and after a spirited attack, when the Tourelles, the strong fort which guarded the bridgehead on the south bank of the Loire, was captured, they were gradually surrounding the town with a circle of fortifications, by which they hoped in time to starve it into surrender. The citizens had destroyed their beautiful suburbs, which had as many inhabitants as the city itself, lest shelter should be afforded the enemy ; the city was protected by high and thick walls crowned by thirty great towers, and by the river at its feet. It was well provisioned and supplied with all the materials of war ; the people were brave and loyal, and one or another of the French captains and their companies had slipped by the forts to aid them. But France had no great leader, and these English were known as very devils; it was said they had tails, and they denied God ceaselessly with their " Goddam," wherefore all good Frenchmen called them Godons. And now, such was their prestige, with such dismay had their dreadful hurrah inspired French hearts, that no concerted attack was made upon them. The forces of England varied ; men had been withdrawn for garrison duty elsewhere and were replaced slowly, as opportunity served. At the taking of the Tourelles their commander, Salisbury, had been killed.

As he climbed one of the towers of the fort, a captain said to him : " My lord, behold your good city. Here you see it well." But a chance shot from the walls blew off half his head, and after his death, the English force broke up, leaving only five hundred men to guard their forts. In December, however, their great captain, Talbot, had arrived with reinforcements ; and on February 12, in the ** battle of the herrings," an ill-planned attack at Rouvray upon a convoy bearing Lenten fare to the English army under the command of Sir John Fastolf, the French were defeated, and England lost some blood, and the fish for her good churchmen from carts hastily drawn up for a rampart. The English went on building their great bastilles, high earthworks topped with palisades ; the French kept up their futile skirmishing, and their famous gunner, Maitre Jean the Lorrainer, picked off his Englishmen day by day. A humorous person was Maitre Jean, who put himself to some inconvenience to divert the enemy. " In order to mock them," says the chronicle, "sometimes he let himself fall to the ground, feigning to be dead or wounded, and thus was carried into the city. But incontinently he returned to the fight, and so bore himself that the English knew him for a live man to their great harm and discomfort.'* The siege, conducted in the polite and leisurely manner of the time, had its pleasant interludes. English knights challenged Frenchmen to single combat, or the pages of besieged and besiegers were turned loose on an island in the river to pummel one another for the glory of England or France and the amusement of the armies. On Christmas Day there was a truce, and French minstrels made music for the enemy ; and Dunois, then known as the Bastard of Orleans, lieutenant-general of the dauphin, sent Suffolk a present of a furred cloak in return for a plate of figs and dates. Weeks passed by, the French not daring to attack the English, the English not strong enough to take the city and relying upon the growing cordon of their fortifications, while the remnant of Charles's adherents watched with anxious eyes the fortunes of the siege which should decide the fate of France.

Again and again Jeanne sought out Baudricourt.

" Sir captain, do you not know that God has many times made known to me that I must go to the gentle dauphin, who ought to be, and is, true King of France? And that he will give me men-at-arms, and that I shall raise the siege of Orleans, and lead him to be consecrated at Reims?"

And Robert did not laugh now, although he gave no promise of help. The girl's persistence and dignity must have made their impression upon the rough soldier; but her mystical faith in her mission puzzled him, and it occurred to him that she might be possessed by some spirit, — whether good or evil, he determined to find out. One day while Catherine le Royer and Jeanne were quietly sewing, Baudricourt appeared in the doorway, accompanied by the parish priest. Putting on his stole and advancing toward Jeanne, the cur^ pronounced the solemn exorcism : ** If thou art a thing of evil, begone ; if a thing of good, approach." And for answer, Jeanne fell on her knees before him ; but she afterwards said to Catherine : " The act was ill done. He had heard me in confession, and knew what manner of girl I was." This settled the question of evil spirits ; but still Baudricourt delayed, perhaps to send news to the dauphin of this maiden from the Marches of Lorraine.

One day a young knight, Jean de Nouillompont, commonly called Jean de Metz, who remembered her first visit, saw Jeanne and called out :

" Well, my dear, what are you doing here ? How about the king being driven from his kingdom, and all of us being English ? "

But the girl's heart was too full for light words.

"I am come to this royal town," she responded, "to ask Robert de Baudricourt to send me to the dauphin. But Robert does not heed me or my words. Nevertheless, by mid- Lent I must come before the dauphin, though I wear my legs to the knee to do it. For no one in the world, kings, nor dukes, nor the daughter of the King of Scotland, nor any other, can save the kingdom of France. There is no succor to be expected but from me."

She had heard of the betrothal of the child who was to be Louis XI to little Margaret of Scotland, and the promised dowry of an army. But she put no faith in such help. It was she, and she alone, who must save France : that was the vision that kept her soul alight. And then the brave heart added :

" In truth I would rather be spinning with my poor mother, since this is not my station. But I must go and this I must do, because my Lord wills that I should do it."

And Jean de Metz asked, as had Baudricourt, —

"Who is this lord.?"

"He is God."

Then the bluff soldier with a knightly heart placed his hands in hers in the old feudal fashion, and pledged his faith to her.

'' I, Jean, swear to you, Maid, my hands in your hands, that I, God helping me, will lead you to the king, and I ask when you will go."

"Now," said she, "better than tomorrow; better tomorrow than later."

Bertrand de Poulengy, who witnessed her first visit to the castle, made her a like promise, and these two were unfailing in their loyalty.

Burning with impatience to be gone, stabbed with homesickness for those she had left forever, the days hung heavy on Jeanne's spirit ; but, as usual, she did the work under her hand, and that work no one could do better. Now she helped Catherine le Royer in humble household ways : " A good, simple, gentle, well-conducted girl," said Catherine. And she went often to pray in the chapel of the castle, where a little choir boy, as he testified twenty-seven years later, used to see her kneeling before the Virgin, sometimes bowed to the ground, again with her face raised to heaven. She took the Sacrament often, weeping, it was said, floods of tears ; and indeed the eager, high-strung spirit must have been strained to the breaking-point as the call of her mission sounded ever clearer in her ears, and she was powerless to obey. Once she started on foot. Laxart said: "When the Maid saw that Robert de Baudricourt would not have her led to the place where the dauphin was, she took clothes from me, and said she must be going; and I went with her as far as St. Nicolas." But this was not the appointed way, she knew, and she returned to Vaucouleurs.